Though hurt, Quarles refuses to strain relations

By Rick Stroud, Times staff writer
Published April 26, 2007

TAMPA - A few days before the 2003 opener, linebacker Shelton Quarles broke his forearm during a special teams drill.

He said the Bucs considered placing him on injured reserve.

"I broke my forearm and they were trying to make a decision as to whether or not I could compete or stay out and miss the whole year," Quarles said Wednesday during an interview on the Steve Duemig radio show on 620-AM. "But I got through it with plates in there and put a cast on it and I was back on the football field within five games of me breaking my arm with a compound fracture, a dislocated wrist and a dislocated elbow. But I'm a competitor, so sometimes I think I can play through anything. And with the injuries I've had, I've always played through it ... that's football. That's what you do."

Quarles, 35, whose contract was terminated Tuesday for failing a physical, acknowledged he took an exit physical at the end of the 2006 season but said he had never been given the results.

While admitting he is hurt, he did not specify the injury, though it is believed to be a recurring knee problem.

"In my opinion, it wasn't (worse)," Quarles said. "I had other things I was dealing with last year as far as the thing that kept me out of the first game of the year and also a high ankle sprain. But a high ankle sprain I suffered during the year was not a product of the injury I've been dealing with the last three years, it's just something that happened on a particular play ..."

Quarles refused to criticize the franchise he spent the past 10 years with, choosing at several points to decline comment.

Did he want to compete for his job? "No comment."

Was it his decision? "No comment."

Did they ask him to retire? "No comment."

Did the doctors say he couldn't play? "No comment."

He did say: "The thing with me is I'm a company kind of guy. I respect the guys that allowed me to play the game of football for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and I won't do anything to hurt them. That's not my personality, regardless of the way I feel or what I'm going through ... with both myself and my family; we'll figure a way to get through it and I'm confident in that."

Quarles admitted he was somewhat blindsided by the business side of pro football.

"When you're in it and you're playing and you think you're playing at a certain level, of course you think everything is peaches and cream," Quarles said. "But once you get down to it, it's a business. You think things should go a certain way and when they don't go that way, you try not to have hard feelings, but sometimes you can't do anything but have that be that way. But I don't have any hard feelings toward anybody who made the decision."

He finished the interview by reading a prepared statement: "During the past four years, I've put a quality product on the field. I know what I'm capable of. I know my body. I know I can still compete at the professional level. I will offer respect to this organization and I will always be a Buccaneer, regardless of what happens. I will always be appreciative of the Glazers for giving a young man from Nashville, Tenn. ... a chance and I believe I have represented them well on and off the football field. Tomorrow will take care of itself, be it as a player or as a professional. I will approach it with the same tenacity I did when I entered the league. For that, I'm excited and I want to say, 'Go Bucs,' to the very end."

[Last modified April 26, 2007, 01:27:44]